Henri Forest’s AOC Minervois wins Naked Wines competition

Henri Forest, an independent winemaker from South-Western France, has secured £50,000 worth of sales and privileged access to the British market further to winning the Zero to Hero competition organised by UK-based online wine retailer Naked Wines. Out of 240 wines, Le Clos de l’Olivier Minervois 2010, which is produced on the Villepeyroux-Forest estate (near Carcassonne), came out on top.

Henri Forest, an independent winemaker from South-Western France, has secured £50,000 worth of sales and privileged access to the British market further to winning the Zero to Hero competition organised by UK-based online wine retailer Naked Wines. Out of 240 wines, Le Clos de l’Olivier Minervois 2010, which is produced on the Villepeyroux-Forest estate (near Carcassonne), came out on top.

Henri Forest, Manager of the estate in Villepeyroux-Forest, explains, “This is a great day for the Villepeyroux-Forest estate. Thanks to hundreds of British wine drinkers who singled out our wine, we will be living our dream and exporting to the UK for the first time. We very much look forward to working with Naked Wines and growing our business.”

With the help of the French Trade Commission UBIFRANCE in London, Villepeyroux-Forest, the estate of Henri Forest which is based near Carcassonne (in South-Western France), participated in a competition launched by Naked Wines. The UK-based online wine retailer organised the Zero to Hero competition in order to find the most talented, yet undiscovered, winemakers.

Having blind-tasted 240 wines, Naked Wines’ Angels (as the visitors to the wine website who invest in wine on a monthly basis are known) chose the top three. After a final tasting, the Angels declared the winner to be Le Clos de l’Olivier Minervois 2010 from the Villepeyroux-Forest estate. This wine is an AOC Minervois, which is a blend of two types of grapes — Grenache and Shiraz.

Previously an unknown estate in the UK, Villepeyroux-Forest consequently won a permanent UK listing and an upfront £50,000 order from Naked Wines. The winning wine is now retailing for £14.99 on the Naked Wines website. One of the Naked Wines judges describes is as follows: “Dark fruits, aniseed, honey, and smoked loveliness. Ruddy marvellous.”

Henri Forrest explains, “Until now, we have privileged pure and fruity grape varieties, but, thanks to this breakthrough [with Naked Wines], we are set to expand the range of AOC wines across blended wines that use old grape varieties, such as Carignan, Shiraz and Grenache. The aim is to offer our customers more powerful wines, on top of our fruity examples. These wines will be on show at ProWein, in Düsseldorf, in March 2013.”

About Naked Wines

Naked Wines was founded in 2008. Having attracted 250,000 customers, the online retailer now ships 10,000 bottles of wine per day. Naked Wines has 100,000 Angels. The company uses the revenue it generates to fund independent winemakers, such as Henri Forest.

For further information about Naked Wines, please go to: http://www.nakedwines.com

About the Villepeyroux-Forest estate

In 2006, Claudie and Henri Forest acquired the Villepeyroux estate, which covers 40 hectares of clay and limestone soil in the municipality of Malves, in the Minervois region of South-Western France, near the historic city of Carcassonne.

At the beginning, all wine produced was sent to a co-operative wine cellar but, in 2008, the family decided to restore the wine cellar on the estate and start production on a larger scale. In 2011, Stéphanie Forest, daughter of Claudie and Henri Forest, and her husband, Yann, joined the estate in order to assist in its expansion.

 In March 2013, Henri Forest will be at the ProWein trade fair in Düsseldorf (Germany).

For further information about ProWein, please go to: http://www.prowein.com/

For further information about the Villepeyroux-Forest estate and its winning Minervois wine, please go to: www.villepeyroux-forest.fr

For further information, please contact :

Quote ref. : FTPB3772

Ms Katherine WOODS - Press Officer

UBIFRANCE Press Office in London

Tel: +44 (0) 207 024 3640

katherine.woods@ubifrance.fr 

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http://www.ubifrance.com/uk/

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